One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

 

A quick read, and made me want to go to Italy (specifically Positano, loved the story of how it got its name!) like NOW!

Beautiful setting, interesting premise, but not at all what I thought it would be.  Jacket says a young woman loses her mother, then takes the trip they had planned together only to meet a younger version of her mother on the trip and so she gets to know her mom in her youth.  Of course, revelations occur and our heroine learns a lot about her mom and herself.  But the book focuses more on her own marriage and flirty behavior while she takes a break from her husband, and all this mixed up together just did not meld for me.  I would have much preferred the focus to be ONLY on the woman and her mom, and not hijacked by the flirting.  Or at least maybe not as much as there was.

That being said, I did enjoy most of the story.  There are many insights into how grief is experienced in many different ways; how one person should not be responsible for another's happiness; how sometimes letting go is the biggest act of love.  I think there is a LOT to talk about here in book clubs, a lot to unpack about the mother-daughter relationship and whether it could be TOO close, and how even women of today who are supposedly so strong and independent still have a hard time making their own decisions for themselves.  There are lots of fun book references here (pay attention to the prologue page, haha!), and this book will make you hungry for caprese everything. I think the biggest question we are all left with is this:  What do you want? Meaning, don't let someone else tell you all the answers.  Answer for yourself.   I would still recommend it, but thought the ending came a bit too tidily.  A fun, light read that will also make you think.  3.5 stars really, but I always round up!!

The Water Keeper/The Letter Keeper/The Record Keeper by Charles Martin

 

  

Today, it's a three-fer!!

My book club choose The Water Keeper for our selection this summer.  While I missed the meeting, I brought it up at the next one for a brief recap and disclosed that I was already into the second book.  Then Ronnie says, "Well, wait til you get to the end of the third one!!!"

Ronnie, I owe you a phone call!

I went into these books totally blind as to the subject matter.  And actually I think that is a good approach here because if I start to tell you What this series is about I think you can miss what is really going on here.  Martin is a fantastic writer; I have read a few of his other books and while there is a religious/Christian bent to his work it is not overwhelming, it is just part of the story and forges more of a moral compass than any kind of guilt trip or evangelism, so no worries there in my opinion.

What I will tell you is that you will be pulled into this story of a man, his life, his chosen vocation(s), his passion, his identities, his faults, his mentor, his love, and most of all, his heart.  There is action, there is love, there are guns and boats and people in danger; and there is hope and family and healing and photography and, most fun, a fabulously expressive dog.  (Reminded me in part of the banter Dean Koontz puts into his novels, and there is almost always a dog in a Koontz book!)  By the time you get to the third book, there is a shift in the story with LOT of flashback and you are halfway through the book before you get some good action, but I do think Martin wraps it up pretty nicely, lots of closure realistically done, and maybe even some room to revisit Murphy - if he wants to.  Maybe by this time Murph has earned a much needed break!!  For so much action this series is almost quietly written; I could not put them down.

Check out Long Way Gone and When Crickets Cry by Martin too - but have your tissues at the ready!